There are certain pairings on TV that we like to categorise as "Be Careful What You Wish For" couples. You know what we're talking about. Two characters have such undeniable, simmering romantic chemistry that everyone, from the fans to the writers to the actors, is rooting for them to get together and make it work.

Maybe the writers drag it out for a few seasons, playing on the will-they-won't-they tension, before finally biting the bullet and putting the couple together. And when they finally do... You wish they'd never gone there.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Below are eight TV couples we were convinced we needed to see hook up, until they did.

Shippers, hear us out. The dynamic between Christopher Eccleston's haunted Time Lord and Billie Piper's fun, fiery Rose was a winner – not so much Will They / Won't They as an Are They / Aren't They (in love, that is).

But once Eccleston jumped ship (no pun intended) and David Tennant took the helm of the TARDIS, the Doctor & Rose's relationship became almost unbearably cloying.

Tennant was a superb Doctor, but his more brash, cocky incarnation needed a companion who'd tear a few strips off him, and call him on his bad qualities – hello, Donna Noble!

Ten and Rose brought out the worst in each other. It's telling that the best thing they ever did – in 2006's admittedly poignant 'Doomsday' – was break up.

For the first three seasons of TVD, Delena was the more intriguing side of the central love triangle, with Damon the dangerous and intriguing alternative to his steadfast vampire bro Stefan (the Spike to Stefan's Angel, if you speak our language). Watching Elena struggle and increasingly fail to deny her feelings for him was fun and hot and unpredictable.

But as it turned out, they worked much better as a simmering, never-entirely-resolved possibility than a fully-fledged couple. It didn't help that they initially got together as a consequence of the sire bond storyline, which destroyed Elena's agency and undermined all the actual development their relationship had.

Six seasons is a lot of buildup for any relationship, and this one really was a slow burn, with the banter and the shared history and the consistent sense that Cuddy was the only person – aside from Wilson – who actually understood House. They made so much sense, and yet made absolutely no sense when they finally became a couple in season seven, incontestably the show's worst.

The fallout from their disastrous on-screen relationship was so bad that it (indirectly or otherwise) led Lisa Edelstein to leave the show entirely, making Cuddy a very prominent absence from the final season. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that the world would be a better place had Huddy never happened.

There was always something beneath the antagonistic surface of Carrie's relationship with fellow emotionally crippled CIA badass Quinn, and we were so intrigued by this possibility that we even included them in our list of TV couples that should get together. Oh, how wrong we were.

The handling of Quinn's ill-motivated feelings for Carrie, and her equally nonsensical reactions, was the Achilles heel of a season that was otherwise hailed as a comeback. No matter how many times the script told us that Carrie and Quinn should be together, it never came across on-screen, making the melodramatic finale a complete dud. We love both characters separately, so let's hope season five keeps them that way.

An in-their-pomp Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd were arguably the sexiest couple on TV in the '80s, the private-detective duo steaming up the screen, solving crimes and talking to the audience with wild abandon (before House of Cards came along and made it cool again). With clever lines falling from their lips and Emmy awards coming out of their ears for the first two seasons of "will they, won't they", the third dropped a clanger: the pair actually hooked up.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

With the tension gone, audiences lost interest and a poorly written fourth series was further hampered with Willis's sudden Die Hard success and Shepherd becoming a mum. The fifth series actually saw the show cancelled on-screen, a TV producer lecturing the pair on "the perils of losing their audience and the fragility of romance". Ain't that the truth.

The unexpected-yet-believable friendship between B and Lonely Boy was a highlight of the show from very early in season one, and for a good three or four seasons they remained that way, endearingly calling each other on their BS while bonding over their shared love of old movies, art exhibits and sarcasm.

But then Dan's romantic feelings for Blair turned him into a creepy manipulator, and everything that was once adorable about their bond turned sour. You know a relationship's gone bad when Chuck Bass looks like the emotionally stable alternative, which is where Blair and Dan landed us by the end of season five.

From its pilot episode on, there was an obvious spark between New Girl duo Nick and Jess - the on-screen chemistry between Jake Johnson and Zooey Deschanel was palpable and the show's writers were quick to catch on, first playing with the possibility of pairing them off in ep 1.05, 'Cece Crashes'.

Their first kiss – in 2.15, 'Cooler' – was an unquestionably glorious moment, but all that hot hot heat fizzled out the moment Jess and Nick actually became a couple.

A lacklustre third season – which recycled the 'Jess fixes Nick' plot ad infinitum – culminated in their split, but season four's finale hinted at a possible reconciliation. Our advice? Stay just friends.

This one's a little different, since Olivia & Fitz have never been unresolved – their affair has already been going on for months in Scandal's pilot. But we do see the slow burn of its development in flashbacks, and a substantial portion of the audience is certainly rooting for them to get together for good.

The actors' chemistry alone was enough to keep us happily riding the Olitz train through to season two, but now we've seen them have the same overwrought conversation so many times that it's almost become like parody. Both characters are at their worst when they're together, and the relationship went from being the heart of the show to the anchor dragging it down.